ON THE DESIGN OF A FLATNESS-BASED GUIDANCE ALGORITHM FOR THE TERMINAL AREA ENERGY MANAGEMENT OF A WINGED-BODY VEHICLE

This paper suggests a flatness theory-based guidance scheme dedicated to the Terminal Area Energy Management (TAEM) guidance of a Reusable Launch Vehicle. The suggested guidance strategy is based on a Nonlinear Dynamic Inversion (NDI) by flatness approach adapted to the large flight envelope that characterizes the RLV reentry. By this way, after having demonstrated the flatness property of the coupled in-plane and out-of-plane vehicle dynamics, a linear tracking controller is added to the flat model so as to circumvent off-nominal flight conditions. Eventually, the robustness and performances of the considered TAEM guidance scheme are assessed using Monte Carlo simulations under a dedicated simulation tool.